Movies.Com Covers the Changing Look of the Twilight Saga

This week in Laura’s column on Movies.com she covers the ever changing looks of the the Twilight Saga on screen.

“Change. Either you’re a person who likes change, or you go with the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” theory. The Twilight Saga has had its changes, ranging from casting, to directors, to character appearance, to Edward’s Volvo, and those are just for starters. Most fans realize that when you are going to adapt a book to screen, or switch out directors, inevitably, some things are going to get cut or changed. The question is how much change is good and how much is distracting.

There was some angst earlier this week when Entertainment Weekly had an image of Edward and Bella, as portrayed by Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart on the cover. Fans noticed that Kristen Stewart wasn’t wearing Bella’s brown contacts and Robert Pattinson wasn’t wearing his golden ones. Lens-gate, as the fan sites started to call it, was put to rest when Bill Condon confirmed, through his partner Jack Morrissey, that the shots were taken during a scene rehearsal. With all that water, it was understandable why they wouldn’t put the contact lenses in until the last second. Fans could rest easy knowing that director Bill Condon had an eye on the finer details!”

Comments

The contact lens issue was a bit over the top. Would I have liked that the silver Volvo was in the movies? Yes, but no. It doesn’t matter too much. I don’t think they manufacture that vehicle anymore, and I could see why a private owner wouldn’t want someone to do the “driving” with theirs that was needed in Twilight. That model was upwards of $60k or more brand new. I did enjoy the vision the directors brought to the later movies more than what Hardwick did with Twilight, but then again it was an indy movie (and it looked like one) with an uncertain box office return. Since it’s a force of nature now, they can throw more money into the budget. If anything, the BD poster seems confusing to me as to why they went in that direction. Did they change most of the production team too?

I understand necessary changes (like a different model Volvo) and some artistic changes (like color themes for different movies). But some changes were just WRONG. Like Bella getting new coats – she only needs one coat and she can’t afford more. (The costuming department can just deal with it. Challenges are good for people.) Like the SUV – so help me, if Jacob drives away from the house in anything other than an awesome sports car, I may leap up from my chair shouting NO! And WTF was up with Ashley’s costuming in New Moon? The wig, the scarf, the coat … ug.
Once you get it right, do your best to stick with it. Jasper’s hair is a great example. It was iffy in Twilight, horrible in New Moon, and perfect in Eclipse. So why did it change for BD?
Really looking forward to BD. But also getting nervous.

In truth small changes have never bothered me, as each director has a different approach as to how things should go. In short, it comes with the territory. I wasn’t bothered by the changing hair styles, clothes, cars, and such. The only thing that did bother me just a bit, was David Slade’s changed the werewolves’ human eyes in favor of feral wolf eyes. The largest reason I didn’t like this change was that the wolves’ human eyes, reminded us that they aren’t just a pack of large wolves, but teenagers who have been forced to turn into vampire slaying werewolves. It reminds us that there is humanity behind the fur and claws…per say. In Eclipse none of the wolves acted like their human counterparts, so unless you’ve read the books you’re not going to know which wolf belongs to which character. It would have been nice had the delved a bit deeper in that context… but alas…

My biggest problem has been with the “Melissa-fication” of the book by the screenwriter. Rosenberg has butchered every single script and even inserted her own feminist views into the movies where it was NEVER present in the books. Having Bella mention hyphenating her name to Swan-Cullen was ridiculous. Book Bella didn’t care about hanging onto her maiden name! She wanted to be Mrs. Edward Cullen more than anything else in the world—she even gave up her mortality for it, and you’re telling me it was important for her to keep ‘Swan” in her name? That was just pure BS and I felt like throwing up when I heard it in the movie. (Eclipse) In fact, that whole final monologue in Eclipse by Bella was nothing but claptrap. Everything else I could live with, but not the damage that woman did to Stephenie’s books.

The books will always be the best option when you want to relive this beautiful love story again.

I really don’t see why the volvo could not be a silver one and also Bellas bike in the book is bright red so they gave her a silver one in New Moon. These are easy things to keep to the book. The thing that really annoyed me in Eclipse was the squeaky clean new build bungalow of Billy and Jacobs with the flowers outside. The houses in New Moon were much more realistic. I thought Eclipse had become too glossy and I worry that Breaking Dawn will be even more so but I will keep my fingers crossed and hope not.